Almost 50 Northamptonshire Police officers accused of misconduct in 2013

A total of 48 Northamptonshire Police officers were investigated after allegations of misconduct last year, latest figures have shown.

As part of a move to improve transparency, Northamptonshire Police has announced plans to publish details of all internal misconduct hearings carried out by the force.

Northamptonshire Police logo, Kettering police station

The figures will be published on its website every three months.

During 2013, the professional standards department formally investigated 81 allegations of misconduct by 48 police officers and 33 members of staff.

In 21 of these cases it was found there was no case to answer and 31 of the allegations were dealt with through management action.

Eight cases resulted in a misconduct meeting and 21 cases were assessed as amounting to gross misconduct. Three special constables and two members of staff subject to an allegation resigned during the course of the investigation, and prior to a formal hearing.

The details of the misconduct hearings reveal that eight members of staff were dismissed without notice.

One police officer was found guilty of a neglect of duty, one misused force systems and another made inappropriate comments about colleagues and used social media inappropriately.

Another member of staff was dismissed for falsifying an application form, another for inappropriate behaviour towards colleagues and two people were sacked for falsifying information relating to an incident.

One member of staff was given a final written warning after he “struck a colleague” while at work.

Another member of staff was given a written warning for an inappropriate posting on Twitter.

Detective Superintendent Jan Meagher, head of the professional standards department, said she hoped the publication of the misconduct allegations would help build public confidence in the force.

She said: “Northamptonshire Police fully support the ongoing work to promote public confidence in the police service’s ability to robustly deal with misconduct.

“In doing so, we will now publish on a quarterly basis anonymised outcomes of misconduct meetings and misconduct hearings, including those cases where officers and staff leave the force prior to the conclusion of an investigation for matters assessed as gross misconduct or who leave the force prior to a hearing where a case to answer has been established.

“The benefits of proactive publication of this information include enhanced public transparency of local conduct matters and a reduction in the impact of administration of Freedom of Information Act requests for such data.”

Northamptonshire Police currently has 1,287 police officers, 124 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), 996 other members of police staff and 263 special constables.

During 2013, the force dealt with more than 200,000 reported incidents and investigated more than 41,400 crimes, which led to 13,505 arrests.